As my frustration continuous over the locked clockface option om most MTK6580 round watches, I’ve tried to do a workaround.
Already did I find out that the clock on the KW88 is the homescreen of a launcher app, and after installing Google Now Launcher I discovered that I could select my own default launcher app.
So today I installed TSF launcher (my favorite on my phone) and it worked perfect. It has some default clockfaces and the default homepage can be defined. Also the clock widget can be resized to whatever display.
Although this was a quick test, it works and shows that there’s another way to have our own clockfaces on locked frameworks.
I’ve used Twisted Home manger to change and reset the default launcher app…
Attention, bad focus alert 
Nice, looking forward to see more of your tests.
Things are looking better by the minute.
Having installed “TSF launcher” I found it has gesture support. Also installing “Home2 Shortcut” which gives me the option to reconfigure the power button to power off only when double pressed. Single press now rotates the multi window dashboard back to the clockface. Beautifully animated.
Double tapping the display fully opens the notification bar. Swiping down toggles the brightness setting and swiping up toggles the bottom app bar. Whoohooo!!!
Got an external photoshoot today and the rest of the weekend. next week I’ll make a video of the whole thing. I’m very excited again.
This watch is going to be a monster android device.
@Kenneth_Tan Thank you for all this. I’ve been playing with launchers as well. I’m excited to try out TSF launcher. Nice find!
Yes, TSF launcher is my first choice on android devices for years. It might look as it’s overkill for a smartwatcg but just these overkill options might now be our saviour. Resizing icons and widgets and the plethora of animation options could make it a new framework for smartwatches.
There are some bugs to work out. When you use the watches option to zoom out to full frame and return it resizes the perfectly placed widgets. I’ll send the developer a mail to ask him for some support. Thia might also be for them an emerging new market. Maybe a light version of their launcher. The mtk6580 soc has absolutely no problem with the processing demands and rums super smooth.
Also I’m blown away with how many apps you can install on a 512KB/4GB watch where only 2GB is available for installing personal apps.
Can’t wait for this video tutorial or review on this. I’m sure many of the KW88 owners are very interested with this development.
My main concern is battery consumption…
For me battery consumption is not so much an issue anymore since I’ve seen how fast it recharges. I put the watch on charger during lunch and I can use all features all day long. So 2 charge cycles per day with the mid-day cycle 20 minutes or less just to top it off.
With the watchband clasps and the magnetic charge connector I can live with that, seeing that the tradeoff is that I can use it without restricting myself.
Were you able to get better looking watchfaces?
I’m currently looking into the possibilities of other watchfaces. Actually, it are either TSF clock widgets or 3rd party clock widgets.
The main revelation is, that clockfaces can be used with TSF as an alternative launcher.
Things to pay attention to, is that with pressing the button, the selected clockface should be the first “desktop” to show. And in the case of TSF it doesn’t get dynamically resized if the fullscreen/zoom function (long press power button) is toggled. This sometimes happens now. Looking into the configuration files if it can be disabled.
Also been having som problems with the “Home 2” app. Initially I was able to set the power button single press (power on or pressing once during power on) to rotate TSF to the default home page (with the clockface on it) after some fiddling, I cannot get this to reproduce anymore. Powering off the watch is bij double tapping the power button, which is what I want it to do.
Still so much to figure out, but I like what I’m getting. Also quit happy with Wifi battery consumption and charging times.
Have a look at the other post, where I talk about Whatsapp. This could be a possible workaround for making network phone calls.
